A GOOD AGE: Quincy woman tries to find place in history for her mom's graduation photo

Marjorie McAllister kept her mother’s Coddington School eighth-grade graduation photo from 1910 in a special box for years. Someday, she thought, she’d have to find the right place for it.

By Sue Scheible

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Sue Scheible

Posted Jul. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 30, 2013 at 7:30 PM

By Sue Scheible

Posted Jul. 30, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 30, 2013 at 7:30 PM

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What to do with old family photos or everyday household items you treasure and think others also might value in the future?

Marjorie McAllister kept her mother’s eighth-grade graduation photo from 1910 in a special box for years. Someday, she thought, she’d have to find the right place for it. She didn’t want it tossed out when she was gone and she had no family members interested in it.

Last year after her sister, Barbara Collins, 87, died, McAllister, 81, felt it was time to decide. I got this email:

“When I was reading the article in the Saturday Patriot Ledger about the ‘‘Coddington rehab,’’ I immediately thought about the fact that my mother, Jessie Ethel McEwan McAllister, graduated from the Coddington School on June 16, 1910, at age 15.

“I have the picture of the graduating class seated in front of the school and her graduation certificate. On the back of the picture are the names of all the grammar schools in Quincy and the names of the graduates from each school. Of course, the back is well-worn because of age – but many of the names are very clear.

“My mom was born in 1895 and married in Houghs Neck in 1915. We lived in Houghs Neck all our lives. The photograph has been been in my ‘keepsake box,’ and I think at this point in my life I have no reason to keep it.”

McAllister also has questions she hopes someone could help answer. She was the youngest in the family and never asked questions about where her parents went to school. Her mother and older sister died of Alzheimer’s disease; her sister who just died had dementia. By the time she was curious enough to start asking questions, “I never had anyone to ask.”

I took the 1910 photograph and graduation certificate to Edward Fitzgerald, executive director of the Quincy Historical Society.

“This is wonderful!” he said, leaning forward and looking closely at the rows of faces. “The hardest thing to go back and document is what ordinary life was like. We are most eager for people to generate things that illustrate the actual life people lived.

“This diploma and photo really help fill out the picture. What the kids look like is important to know.”

In the Ledger archives, I found a 1908 photo of the graduating class from Coddington. Fitzgerald noted that the principal looked like he had aged in two years.

Who knows, maybe someone will come to the historical society looking to learn more about their great-grandmother who went to the Coddington and maybe McAllister’s photo will hold some clues.

Some names on the back have been scraped off by use or are faded, but many are still there. There are no names on the 1908 photograph.

Page 2 of 2 - Fitzgerald laughed as he told a story. A few years ago, a woman brought the historical society her father’s orange cap from the late 1940s and 1950s, when he was a driver for the former Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Co. Fitzgerald grew up in Quincy during that time and it brought back a flood of memories.

“I’m looking for an opportunity to put it into an exhibit, because it is really a neat thing,” he said.

Reach Sue Scheible at scheible@ledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger. READ MOREGood Age columns.